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TALLRITE BLOG
You can write to me at
blog2-at-tallrite-dot-com |
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November 2008 |
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ISSUE #185 - 9th November 2008 [550+5,160=5,710]
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| The Tallrite Blog went on hiatus from 9th November 2008 till 1st February 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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or:
“How Ill Disciplined Financial Mayhem
by Guest Blogger Michael Hey in Aberdeen Discover -
Meet -
Feel free to embellish the tale with your own perspective and maybe one day we can publish that too!
So Barack Obama has won the US Presidency as the culmination of a truly gruelling campaign that was record-breaking in terms of its duration (nearly two years) and spending (nearly a billion dollars). He won fair and square, despite the crookery of his campaign -
His winning margin was large enough to conclude that that these illegal behaviours were unlikely to have swung the balance. Nevertheless, it was disgraceful that the fawning media resolutely refused to give them the widespread publicity they deserved; details were to be found only in conservative publications and blogs. The silence of the law-enforcement agencies was also mystifying. Mr Obama is to be sincerely congratulated on his skilfully wrought campaign, certainly better than those of either John McCain or Hillary Clinton. But he has a back-history that either is unknown or else is appalling, and what he has offered the American people in terms of policies has been dreadful, conflicting or indecipherable. Again, conventional media worldwide made every effort not to dig in and find out details. They got far more excited about the cost of Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe (having first complained what a hick she was) than whether, for example, Mr Obama
As for exploring his conflicting policies (eg Jerusalem undivided or separate?) or his dishonest language (eg tax “cuts” for the 30% of Americans who don’t even pay tax), the media simply looked politely the other way. But Mr Obama certainly has a couple of very strong positives.
The big question is, however, to what objectives will be apply these two formidable talents? If he wants to raise taxes, run away from Iraq, enter unconditional talks with Iran, appoint Supreme Court justices intent on promoting left wing causes - all that policies he has promised - then he will truly prove to be one of America’s most disastrous presidents. But many chief executives have said one thing when vying for the top job and then behaved completely differently when they actually get to work. This is usually due to two things.
Personally, I fervently hope President Obama goes through this honourable transition, and if he is indeed a patriotic American it is hard to imagine he will not. Nevertheless only time will tell. If he adopts a common sense approach, his oratorical skills and calmness under pressure can make him, against my worst fears, into a truly great American president. In the meantime, we should all at least stand back and marvel at the extraordinary masterclass in democracy that the United States has put on and which the world has been privileged to witness. It has been an example to us all.
Maybe Professor Obama simply lacked the imagination to find anything interesting to write about. For it must sometimes be be hard for university staff, whether professors or would-be professors, to dream up worthy subjects to study and pen learned articles about in academic journals. This might explain research undertaken in recent times by, for example,
What do they have in common?
First the brainboxes of Durham and Plymouth Universities. Their work revealed that sportsmen in red tend to do better than, and against, those in other colour(s). This applies both to team sports such as rugby (above, Munster, the current champions of Europe) and football and to one-on-one combat such as tae-kwon-do (or is that no-can-do?). The combat theory was tested at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Contestants in four combat sports - boxing, tae-kwon-do, Greco-Roman wrestling, and freestyle wrestling - were randomly assigned red or blue outfits, or body protectors. In every case, those wearing red won significantly more fights. This daring display of academia succeeded in enhancing the professorshipism of the authors by getting published in the much respected scientific journal Nature, twice. For examining team sports, professional soccer in England was selected. The academics found that, over the thousands of league matches played from 1947 to 2003 between the country's top 68 clubs, teams with red strips (such as Manchester United or Liverpool) won the league 60% of the time, compared with only 20% for those in blue (such as Chelsea), despite more teams wearing blue. But the red teams perform well only when they actually wear red: when they have to wear a different colour, such as for away games, their advantage disappears. The learned gentlemen who came up with this hope to score their own professorial goals when their findings are published later this year in the Journal of Sports Sciences. Meanwhile the geniuses in New York looked at red from a different angle. They wanted to find out how good it is as a man-magnet. Calling it a psychological experiment to make it sound important and scientific, they showed an assortment of lusty men photographs
In all cases, so the proud researchers concluded, red did the trick; men love ladies in red. In red, the little minxes were more likely to attract a good-looking guy, to receive an invitation and to be treated to a more expensive date. It might have been easier to simply ask crooner Chris de Burg about ladies in red, but I guess it was more fun dressing up pretty women in different colours and inviting them out on expensive dates.
Moreover, Mr de Burgh would not have enhanced their careers, whereas their latest findings have just been published as “Romantic red: Red enhances men's attraction to women” in the very impressive-sounding Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Incidentally, you can make your own judgement about the erudition of this scientific periodical by having a look at a few other articles in the same edition, gems such as
So why are men so turned on by red? In humans, anger is associated with a reddening of the skin due to increased blood flow, whereas with fear you get increased pallor; moreover animal studies show that red in males is a signal of dominance. Hence in human competitive situations, redness stimulates deep-rooted aggression and dominance, whereas non-red players are pale, trembling and defensive (I exaggerate) .
Once the baboons and chimps had evolved into humans, it was sexy red dresses that the girls employed for the same purpose. The latest research confirms what women have long suspected - that in the sexual realm men are not the thoughtful sophisticates that they (we) imagine but are consumed by primitive animal-like predilections. Since the universities that unearthed all this wealth of information are largely funded or subsidised by public funds, is it not heart-warming to learn in today's straightened times that there is such value being won for taxpayers' money? Thanks to the academics' selfless research, we now know beyond all doubt that wearing red gives any male or female an unsporting opportunity to score, whether in games or love - or indeed who knows in what other sphere of human life as well. But this situation, like conservative talk radio in the US, is obviously unfair. The US Democrats are right; we need a Fairness Doctrine.
So here is a suggestion for Law Professor Obama in his
spare presidential time in order to plump up his empty professorial
credentials. He ought to research the legal implications of allowing a
red
élite to continue selfishly to
enjoy more than its fair share of
red,
with a view to
spreading the This is surely hope and change we can all believe in.
No words ...
Hat tip: Barry in Dublin
- - - - - - U S E L E C T I O N - - - - - - Quote: “Change has come to America.”
Barack Obama in his victory speech
Whatever happened to hope? Quote: “As January 20th draws near, some of you may be anxious about finding a new job or a new place to live. I know how you feel.”
President George W Bush, in jocular mode, Quote: “So, where were we? It's been a long eight years. Eight years later, here we are. And you know the story. The economy started to go downhill when the policies changed. It started on 20 January 2001. I know. I was the first one laid off.” Al Gore who, in his own words, He was campaigning for Barack Obama in
Florida, Quote (minute 27:20 to 27:35): “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
Barack Obama threatens to destroy the coal industry,
He made the remarks to the San Francisco Chronicle's Quote: “The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it.”
The LA Times excuses itself for
Mr Obama, speaking to guests
who included
Why, I wonder, would the LA
Times be so shy
And anyway, whoever heard of
someone giving a tape to a newspaper Quote: “I won't need to worry about putting gas in my car, I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage. If I help him, he's gonna help me.”
Citizen Peggy Joseph in ecstasy
She is going to be one of millions of Quote: “Mr Obama's election [has] been hailed by world public opinion as the arrival of a Messiah ... who is also handsome, young and suntanned.”
Silvio Berlusconi, speaking in Moscow to - - - - - - U N - - - - - - Quote: “People are being slaughtered and [17,000 UN peacekeepers] did nothing”.
No, not the unfolding genocide in
Rwanda in 1994 This time it's the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The bitter remark was made by
Joseph Kabila its elected president, - - - - - - J A P A N - - - - - - Quote: “It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country [Japan] was an aggressor [in World War 2] … Roosevelt trapped Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor in December 1941.”
General Toshio Tamogami, chief
of staff of Japan's air force, - - - - - - G A Y M A R R I A G E - - - - - - Quote: “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California.”
Proposition 8, which Californians carried
in a referendum by 52½%,
“No More
Mr Nice Gay”, - - - - - - I R E L A N D - - - - - - Quote: “Sorry lads, I can't shake hands with you now. I'm like John McCain, I can't raise my arm above my shoulder.”
Conor
Lenihan, an Irish Minister of State, Quote: “Sharon [is] simply wonderful ... straightforward and honest ... very loving and giving ... a decent lady ... one of the nicest people you could ever have been fortunate to know ... I will not give up on Sharon and will have no hesitation in living with her again.”
Wealthy Irish businessman PJ Howard
She will serve six years for having tried to
contract Clearly, PJ is still starry eyed and besotted.
For the full fascinating story,
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to Tallrite Blog As always, “ill-informed and objectionable” - Comment by an anonymous reader |
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As
for the ladies, 
Now, for a little [Light Relief]
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
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BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
Jihad
Religion
Iona Institute
Leisure
Blog Directory
My Columns in the
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What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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